His voice enchanted her. She went up to his bed and crouched beside it to bring her face on a level with his own. ‘How are you?’ she asked, and then continued: ‘Oh! you are well now. Do you know, I used to cry the whole way home when I came back from over yonder with bad news of you. They told me you were delirious, and that if your dreadful fever did spare your life, it would destroy your reason. Oh, didn’t I kiss your uncle Pascal when he brought you here to recruit your health!’
Then she tucked in his bed-clothes like a young mother.
‘Those burnt-up rocks over yonder, you see, were no good to you. You need trees, and coolness, and quiet. The doctor hasn’t even told a soul that he was hiding you away here. That’s a secret between himself and those who love you. He thought you were lost. Nobody will ever disturb you, you may be sure of that! Uncle Jeanbernat is smoking his pipe by his lettuce bed. The others will get news of you on the sly. Even the doctor isn’t coming back any more. I am to be your doctor now. You don’t want any more physic, it seems. What you now want is to be loved; do you see?’
He did not seem to hear her, his brain as yet was void. His eyes, although his head remained motionless, wandered inquiringly round the room, and it struck her that he was wondering where he might be.
‘This is my room,’ she said. ‘I have given it to you. Isn’t it a pretty one? I took the finest pieces of furniture out of the lumber attic, and then I made those calico curtains to prevent the daylight from dazzling me. And you’re not putting me out a bit. I shall sleep on the second floor. There are three or four empty rooms there.’
Still he looked anxious.
‘You’re alone?’ he asked.
‘Yes; why do you ask that?’
He made no answer, but muttered wearily: ‘I have been dreaming, I am always dreaming. I hear bells ringing, and they tire me.’
And after a pause he went on: ‘Go and shut the door, bolt it; I want you to be alone, quite alone.’